PrintFebruary 1, 2009
Predictions of Hope and Change
Apparently, former presidential candidate, Senator, maverick and jokester, John McCain, is fond of saying, "It is always darkest just before it goes totally black." In that same jocular spirit, I give my predictions for the Obama Administration, short term and long. Let the hilarity ensue.
1. Obama and the Democrats will pass a massive stimulus bill. It will come with a cost of about $849 billion. That is, it will cost just a smidgeon less than the $850 billion bailout proposed, pushed and passed by President Bush and supported by Senator McCain. Thus the Democrats will be able to deflect any accusations of irresponsible spending with "our bill cost less than the Wall Street bailout bill supported by the Republicans." Be prepared to hear that Main Street deserves just as much of a bailout as Wall Street got.
2. The $849 billion stimulus will be a bit short on construction spending but chock full of funding for the left. ACORN will make out big time. So will lawyers and education bureaucrats. We'll have to see if Bill Ayers gets some juicy new government grant. Barney Franks' friends will do OK. The devil will be in the details, of course, but $849 billion to the ACORNs and Sierra Clubs of the world is effectively easy street into perpetuity. By 2010, any person or organization pushing freedom or a free market will be met with a swarm of massive PR, media coverage, protests and law suits. You'll wonder where the freedom-killers get all their money to do such things. It will no longer have to be from George Soros. They'll be funded by your government.
3. The current recession will end later this year, although its end might not be declared until some time in 2010. President Obama will be seen as the man who fixed the problem started by President Bush. Democrats will say, and people will believe, that his stimulus package and wise governance ended the crisis. (The real story, of course, is that it was only a mild downturn to begin with, until the trillion dollar bailouts turned it into a real recession. The uncertainties associated with the bailouts and a new Obama administration spooked the markets. Once the parameters of all that become known and uncertainty reduced, the markets will start recovering. Not to a Dow of 14,000 though - don't be ridiculous.)
4. Obama will keep his promise about pulling US troops out of Iraq. His promise was to pull nearly all troops out 16 months after becoming President. That would be by June 2010 by my reckoning. The public will consider his promise met and, once again, Obama will have gotten us out of another mess President Bush got us into, despite the real victory earned in Bush's time. Those who were killed or injured there will not be considered brave soldiers who kept America safer, overthrew a tyrant and freed 25 million people; they will be considered victims of an irresponsible cowboy Republican.
5. Benjamin Netanyahu will be elected Prime Minister of Israel. When the Mideast situation degrades to constant warfare and higher casualty levels than even now, it will not be blamed on Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah or Iran, nor will it be blamed on the new US policy. It will be blamed on Israel's right wing, intransigent Prime Minister.
6. Iran will get the bomb. Some voices will say "but we can't be sure they really have it." Other voices will say, "we need to be nice to them now; they have the bomb you know." In any case, no one will take action against them. And some will say we have no right to deny another country weapons of its own making. Sanctions will either be lifted or ignored, and Iran will have oil money, WMD and terrorist connections. Ahmadinejad will be personally welcomed to the nuclear club, either by President Obama himself, or by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
7. Osama bin Laden will be killed or captured, with credit going to US troops. President Obama will be hailed as doing what President Bush could not get done in eight years. The War on Terror will be considered over, with Iraq relegated to one huge mistake for all history. Pakistan and other Muslim countries won't be too happy about Osama's demise or US actions in Pakistan, but Obama will make them an offer they can live with: let me get credit for getting Osama, and the US will not intervene in the Mideast - develop your WMD and harass or attack Israel as desired. We'll release some former Gitmo detainees for good measure.
8. A host of leftist legislation will become law, but most of it will be made to look like moderate steps. Instead of the government outright owning the means of production, banking and communication, it will regulate them with rules incomprehensible to the layman.
- Instead of the Fairness Doctrine, we'll get broadcasting ownership restrictions that will have the same effect. You might have to get Sirius to listen to Rush, Sean or Mr. Savage - if Sirius is still in business then.
- Instead of the Employee Free Choice Act (eliminating secret ballots in union votes), we'll get other unionization laws that will effectively make unionization easier. The proportion of the workforce that is unionized will increase significantly. Union bosses will be well compensated; workers, not so much.
- We will get universal health care, but it won't be single-payer, at least on its face. Regulations and mandates will effectively mean that health care in the US will be run by the federal government, but mostly paid for by employers, individuals and states. (Not all that different from now; just more expensive.)
- Banks and banking will be effectively nationalized. (Bank execs will still be well compensated. But they will, almost magically, contribute generously to Democrats. Think Franklin Raines.)
- Gay marriage will not be passed at the federal level, but the Defense of Marriage Act will be overturned. Once the federal government recognizes gay marriage in one state (e.g., Massachusetts), it will be defacto law everywhere. Congress will also overturn the rule prohibiting open homosexuals from serving in the military.
- Abortion will be totally unrestricted, and all civilian and military hospitals, secular and religious, will be forced to provide them. Abortion will be funded by the government both in the US and as part of foreign aid. Of course, embryonic stem cell research and embryonic cloning will be funded with federal dollars.
For guidance on what else will be enacted, see the Communist Manifesto or go here http://www.cpusa.org/article/archive/3/ and click on "Election 2008."
9. In a development that will surprise many, President Obama will not spend like a drunken sailor (or a compassionately conservative Republican), at least in 2011 and 2012. We will have uncomfortably large deficits, but they will be blamed on the lingering effects of the mess the Republicans left and the smoldering crisis (always a crisis). Obama will actually be painted as fiscally moderate and responsible. Of course, defense spending will be cut to 3% of GDP or less (from the current 4%). He won't "raise" Social Security taxes; he'll just apply them to all income levels. And much of a leftist agenda can be accomplished with rules and regulations (see above) rather than spending, at least in Obama's first term.
10. Barack Obama will be re-elected in 2012 with approximately 60% of the popular vote. He will be hailed as the man who got Osama bin Laden and ended the War on Terror, the man who extracted us from the Republican messes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the man who pulled us out of a Republican recession that almost became Great Depression II. Yet his fiscal policies will seem almost moderate: deficits of 3% of GDP after the Republicans left us with deficits of 7% or more. Republicans will lose more seats in the House and Senate in 2010 and 2012. Efforts to remove the 22nd Amendment will gather steam.
Those are my predictions for the short term, through Obama's first term. My long term predictions are worse. The US will be bankrupt by 2020, 2030 at the latest. We'll be such a basket case that few will care whether we are governed by communists or the caliphate (even fewer than now). Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Switzerland will have to enact stricter laws to limit immigration.
The new unilateral superpower will be China. China will adopt the models of Singapore and Hong Kong: economically free, politically unfree. China will have the largest GDP in the world, nukes, access to oil deposits and natural resources and over a billion people who are good at math and work hard. You will be very screwed.
That is the rosy scenario. The less rosy ones involve mushroom clouds.
Randall Hoven can be contacted at randall.hoven@gmail.com or via his web site, kulak.worldbreak.com.
